Causes and consequences of complex population dynamics in an annual plant, Cardamine pensylvanica

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Abstract
The relative importance of density-dependent and density-independent factors in determining the population dynamics of plants has been widely debated with little resolution. In this thesis, the author explores the effects of density-dependent population regulation on population dynamics in Cardamine pensylvanica, an annual plant. In the first chapter, she shows that experimental populations of C. pensylvanica cycled from high to low density in controlled constant-environment conditions. These cycles could not be explained by external environmental changes or simple models of direct density dependence (N{sub t+1} = f[N{sub t}]), but they could be explained by delayed density dependence (N{sub t+1} = f[N{sub t}, N{sub t+1}]). In the second chapter, she shows that the difference in the stability properties of population growth models with and without delayed density dependence is due to the presence of Hopf as well as slip bifurcations from stable to chaotic population dynamics. She also measures delayed density dependence due to effects of parental density on offspring quality in C. pensylvanica and shows that this is large enough to be the cause of the population dynamics observed in C. pensylvanica. In the third chapter, the author extends her analyses of density-dependent population growth models to include interactions between competingmore » species. In the final chapter, she compares the effects of fixed spatial environmental variation and variation in population size on the evolutionary response of C. pensylvanica populations. « less

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